


And Always

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Loneliness, Mental Anguish, Post-Divorce, Sad Ending, Separations, Terminal Illnesses, Unrequited Love, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 05:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: When Chase pledged a "forever love", he meant it no matter the cost.





	And Always

It had started with a faint tickle at the back of his throat. He didn’t notice it behind the lump of anguish lodged there. It didn’t matter. He was too busy sobbing harshly into his pillow, clinging to the sheets that would remain cold without her next to him.

It would stay this way  _forever_.  _Forever_. He had driven her away  _forever_. If he ever saw her again it would be with the same hatred he’d seen in her eyes on that last day. They were broken. He was broken. Everything was his fault.

 _Forever_.

He slept fitfully; he didn’t bother to call it rest. He hadn’t gotten a full night since she’d left. They had always slept wrapped up in each other’s arms. He cried himself into darkness and then woke to a waxy fragrance permeating his room. It lingered. It was strange, but it didn’t matter to him. Not then. All he wanted was the scent of the perfume on her skin.

The fragrance became a sickly stench, stinging his senses, clinging to his skin, turning his stomach. He drank to drown it out. The whiskey numbed, blurred, swirled and burned, tasting like shame and yearning. He drank until his stomach felt as sick and heavy as his heart.

When he vomited, there was a slender speck of gold floating in the sea of vile waste: a petal. With bloodshot eyes he stared at it. It was perversely beautiful, just as she always was, but he knew what it meant.

In his delirious state, he laughed.

The others didn’t. Schneep lost all the color in his face when the x-rays printed. Marvin was in denial, demanding a different explanation, demanding more tests, demanding things that were nicer and safer to hear. For the first time since Chase had known him, Jackieboy  _quailed_.

“Chase…there is a surgery,” Schneep began.

“No.”

“Chase, please, it will save your life! Is the only way!”

“I don’t want it.”

They all cried. It made him want to die right then and there, but it didn’t change his mind.

 _Forever_.

Wasn’t it such a succinct summary of their marriage? His undying (Dying, he was  _dying_ , she was killing him) love for her would always find a way to strangle him, while she walked away with nothing but clean hands (His hands were bloodstained when he coughed now, the petals stuck to his skin as they left his lips.)

Sometimes he wondered if it was her lovelessness alone that was killing him. Sometimes he wondered if the children still loved him…despite how he had broken them…despite how they had cried when they overheard the fights…despite the fact that she had made him be the messenger of doom for them both. “Mama and Daddy are just going to spend some time apart.”

 _Forever_.

He coughed exhaustedly into the medical dish, the nectar pooling in his throat like saccharine mucus. It was a poison, burning his lungs as petals stuck in his windpipe. He could see the roots and tendrils of the plant in his veins now, thorns breaking through layers of his skin, trying to outgrow him. Any large movements made him bleed.

Sometimes he amused himself by using the petals to spell out obscenities. Then Schneep threw the dish against the wall and screamed at him through tears to stop making light of it. He stopped.

When would it stop?

Never.

He would never get to see the end when it came.

For him, it would last  _forever_.

 _His love_.

 _Forever_.


End file.
